Shingeki no Kyojin Episode 22 Anime Review

She has to be six feet under first.

Wow, first awesome half of the episode wasn’t in the manga. Not that I can remember precisely, but I would have remembered that scene. It was an extremely emotionally-charged one, and I’m happy that it was included, since it highlighted the choices that had to be made. Only gripe about it was that maybe Levi could have shown the guy the patch earlier, and possibly prevented him from running off. He’s such a stoic character, which might be why he didn’t want to show how emotional he was about the losses. Though it’s possible that Levi didn’t think somebody would be stupid enough to go and reclaim a body and risking their own life for it.

If you were dead, would you want your friend to go into a titan-infested area just to get your body?

If you were sane and unselfish, you wouldn’t. Granted, there are many religions that place a certain reverance in holding rites for a dead body, but at the expense of someone else’s life? Especially when the Survey Corps are dwindling in number. It’s understandable why Commander Erwin gave the instructions he did. It’s also understandable why the Survey Corps would dwindle so quickly. It’s a ruthless world. I really liked the last look Levi gave to Petra as she was pushed off.

A question I had despite reading the manga was answered in this episode. I was thinking that Levi might be a titan, and the first clue of it hinges in here. He basically had hot titan blood splattered on his cheek. He had a slight burn and a few hours later it disappeared when he had entered the city. It was definitely that same day because we heard the villager comment that they looked so proud going out that morning. We also saw Levi walking beside the horse even though his leg hurt so much he couldn’t rescue the man being attacked by the titan in the earlier scene. That part wasn’t in the manga too, incidentally.

I just realised in that instant we saw another part of Levi’s decision-making. He couldn’t risk himself dying over a newbie recruit getting killed. He understood that with his injury he wouldn’t have had a chance to defeat the titan without most probably dying and so he continued ahead, leaving others to the task, though he wanted to go badly. He knew how valuable he was to the Survey Corps and that losing him would devastate the titan-killing efforts, compared to a new recruit dying. It’s an instant measure of the situation, and probably one he has done a few times already.

So, back to the topic. In the manga, we saw a black smear on Levi’s face with smoke coming out, so it wasn’t too well shown if that was Levi’s own healing powers giving off the smoke or if it was titan blood. The question was answered in this episode, but new details raise more alarm bells for me. Levi’s a titan, definitely. No matter what, you can’t walk so smoothly after such an injury, and why should he?

Knowing how calculating Levi is, shouldn’t he continue sitting on the horse so he can recover more quickly? I mean he could have gotten down out of guilt for Petra being killed, but he did ignore her father and continue to walk. The anime is so much more spoilertastic compared to the manga because of all the details we can see easier.